🇬🇷🇦🇺 Ένα μεγάλο ευχαριστώ στον Ελληνικό Σύλλογο Ηλικιωμένων Φάρος!
🏆📱 Monash is Australia’s MobileMuster champion!
⚾ Great news for Waverley Baseball Club!
A great night celebrating some very talented writers at the Monash Short Story Competition Awards at the historic Oakleigh Hall.
A fantastic morning celebrating the Victorian Seniors Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival with the Monash Chinese Senior Friendship Association in Ashwood!
A wonderful afternoon in Huntingdale yesterday for the official opening of the Shri Sankat Mochan Navdurga Temple!
Welcome to the family Sock 😍
Back at a local favourite, @temperance_society ☕️
A wonderful evening celebrating Durga Puja with the Aurora Bengali Association at Clayton Hall tonight!
Meet the Mayor #7!
50 years ago, Australia’s very first 7-Eleven store opened on Warrigal Road in Oakleigh. They even had an elephant at the grand opening! 🐘
A wonderful morning on Tuesday celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival with members of our Chinese community in Monash.
☀️ Daylight saving is here, and after a busy few months I’m back for another few rounds of Meet the Mayor.
It was great to officially open the greens for the new season at Oakleigh Bowling Club yesterday.
This afternoon I joined members of our community at the Clayton Community Centre for a screening of The Plastic Country.
One of the best parts of being Mayor is welcoming our newest Australian citizens.
Back when April went to 3 Bees Early Learning Centre on Ferntree Gully Road, the centre approached me about the need for a pedestrian crossing so they could safely take children on short excursions to Brickmakers Park.
Two brilliant productions in one day at @musttheatre, (Monash Uni Student Theatre), one with April and one with Donna.
It was a pleasure to join the Australian-Filipino Community Services team to celebrate their 35th anniversary.
It’s AFL Grand Final day. For millions of Australians, including me, it’s one of the great days of the year.
A great morning yesterday at the Faros Greek Senior Club in Mount Waverley, joining @mattfregonmp for their Greek Handcrafts and Cultural Items Exhibition!
Members brought along some wonderful family heirlooms, handmade items and treasures passed down through generations, each with its own story and connection to Greek culture. 🏺
One item that particularly caught my attention was the Pythagoras Cup, an ancient Greek invention designed to teach moderation when drinking. Fill it too high and the entire contents drain out! 🍷
A lesson my wife has been trying to teach me for many years, with limited success. 😂
A big thank you to Rev Dr Steve Kasambalis, Club President George Aggelidis and all the members for the warm welcome and for sharing these wonderful pieces of Greek history and culture with us. ❤️
This year, Monash has taken out the top spot in the MobileMuster Local Government Awards for our efforts recycling old mobile phones and accessories.
A huge thank you to everyone in our community who dropped off their old phones for recycling. It’s a simple thing to do, but collectively it makes a real difference by keeping valuable materials in use and electronic waste out of landfill. ♻️
I caught up with Trav, our Waste Services Coordinator, to check out the trophy and celebrate a great result!
Well done Monash! 👏🏆
Back in March, I received a letter from 12-year-old Nathaniel Keys asking Council to upgrade the club’s ageing batting cages.
A few weeks later, I attended the club’s presentation night and learnt about the years of advocacy behind this project. The designs were complete, but funding was still needed.
After discussions with Council officers and lobbying local State MP John Mullahy, I’m delighted that Council has secured a $450,000 Victorian Government grant!
John and I were at the club on Saturday to announce the funding.
There’s still a $750,000 shortfall, which will be considered as part of Council’s upcoming 2027/28 budget. No guarantees, but I’m confident we’ll get this across the line.
A great example of what can happen when young people speak up. Well done Nathaniel, and everyone at Waverley Baseball Club who has pushed for this project over many years!
@monashcouncil @waverleybaseballclub @johnmullahymp
This year marks 30 years of the competition, and it was terrific to recognise the creativity and hard work of writers across all age groups.
Congratulations to our three First Place winners:
📚 Category A, ages 12 to 14: Ker She Poon for The Colour of Memory
📚 Category B, ages 15 to 17: Selma Jia for Before It Gets Cold
(Selma wasn’t able to join us on the night)
📚 Category C, Adults: Bella Campbell for The Murmuration
Oakleigh Hall turns 120 this year, which made it a particularly fitting place to celebrate writing, ideas and creativity in a building that has been part of community life in Oakleigh for generations.
Congratulations as well to all of our Second Place, Third Place and Highly Commended recipients, and to every one of the 124 writers who entered this year.
A big thank you to our Monash Library team, judges and everyone involved in making the competition such an important part of WordFest each year.
Great to join local Member for Ashwood, Matt Fregon MP, and so many members of our Chinese community for the celebrations.
Groups like this play such an important role in bringing people together, building friendships and helping older residents stay socially connected.
A big thank you to President Mr Gao, the committee and all the volunteers for the wonderful work you do in our community!
It was a pleasure to join members of our local Hindu community to celebrate this special occasion. A big thank you to the Mayor of Glen Eira, Cr Dr Simone Zmood, for joining me.
Places of worship are about much more than faith. They bring people together, provide support and create a sense of belonging.
Congratulations to Vikas Bhardwaj and everyone involved in bringing this temple to life. I hope it serves our community for generations to come!
Steak sandwich for lunch. Absolutely delicious.
Might have to visit the gym after this one… 😂
Monash is one of the most culturally diverse communities in Australia, and events like this are a fantastic opportunity to share and celebrate the many cultures and traditions that make our city so special.
A big thank you to President Sudoti Roy and the entire team for the invitation and a fantastic evening of music, dance and celebration!
Great to be back out in the community today, this time in Huntingdale!
Thanks to everyone who stopped by for a chat. I always enjoy these sessions. They’re a great opportunity to hear directly from residents about what’s happening in their neighbourhoods, the things we’re getting right and where we could be doing better.
Looking to schedule another one for next weekend, weather permitting. Stay tuned!
It was a pretty revolutionary concept at the time. Back in an era when shops closed in the evenings and on weekends, the idea that you could pop down to the shops at almost any hour was something completely new.
Fast forward 50 years, and last week I had the pleasure of officially opening a brand new 7-Eleven in Portman Street, right in the heart of Oakleigh.
Speaking with 7-Eleven’s senior management at the opening, it was great to hear how proud they are to be back in the suburb where it all began in Australia.
A lot has changed in retail over the past half-century, but it’s pretty special to think that a business which has become such a familiar part of Australian life got its start right here in Oakleigh.
Welcome back to Oakleigh, 7-Eleven!
This year marks the 10th anniversary of this celebration, which is a terrific achievement, particularly given the challenges of COVID and the disruption it caused to community events and gatherings.
Events like this are about more than celebrating culture and tradition. They’re also about bringing people together, building friendships and keeping our older residents connected to their community.
Congratulations to everyone involved on 10 years, and thank you for inviting me to celebrate with you!
Meet the Mayor #7 is this Saturday in Huntingdale.
I’ll be at the Huntingdale shopping centre from 2pm to 3pm, outside the Chook Shop on the corner of Hargreaves Street.
No appointment needed. Just come down for a chat about anything happening around Huntingdale or across Monash.
📍 Huntingdale shopping centre
🗓️ Saturday
⏰ 2pm–3pm
Hope to see you there!
They have been part of our community since 1902, and has called its current site home since 1907. Even the clubhouse has a bit of history behind it, turning 70 this year.
Clubs like this are about so much more than sport. They bring people together, create friendships and give people somewhere they belong.
That becomes even more important as we get older. Social connection can make an enormous difference when it comes to loneliness, isolation and mental health, and local clubs like Oakleigh Bowling Club provide exactly that.
Thanks to everyone at the club for having me along, and to all the volunteers and members who continue to make it such an important part of the Oakleigh community.
It’s a confronting Australian documentary that follows filmmaker and ocean advocate @kalglanznig across the country, from plastic washing up on remote coastlines and its impact on wildlife, through to what microplastics and chemicals may be doing to our own bodies.
But one of the strongest messages from the film is that we can’t recycle our way out of this problem. We also need to deal with how much plastic and packaging is being produced in the first place.
That made the timing particularly relevant.
This week, Monash Council passed a motion expressing our disappointment with the Federal Government’s decision not to proceed with mandatory national packaging standards during this term of government.
Those reforms were intended to include minimum recycled content requirements, packaging design standards and restrictions on harmful chemicals. Instead, the Federal Government is now pursuing work with the states and territories to strengthen and harmonise packaging regulation.
At a local level, we’ll keep doing what we can. Since 2021/22, Monash has reduced the amount of waste we send to landfill by almost a third. Our Recycling and Waste Centre is recovering everything from cardboard and e-waste to soft plastics and paint, and we continue to invest in ways to reuse, repair and recycle more.
But councils are at the end of the waste chain. There is only so much we can do once the packaging has already been produced, sold, used and thrown away.
The Plastic Country is a powerful reminder that reducing plastic waste needs action at every level.
Citizenship ceremonies are always special. For the people making the pledge, it marks the end of one journey and the beginning of another.
On Monday night we welcomed people from across the world who have chosen to make Australia their home and become part of our Monash community.
Every person has a different story about what brought them here, but from today they all share something new in common. They are Australian citizens.
Congratulations to everyone who took the pledge. It was a privilege to be part of such an important moment for you and your families.
Welcome, and congratulations. 🇦🇺
At the time, there was no safe crossing point between Atkinson Street and Huntingdale Road. I raised it with @steve_dimopoulos and he agreed that something needed to be done.
It’s taken a while, with COVID interrupting progress along the way, but it’s terrific to finally see the new crossing delivered.
It will make a real difference for families with young children, people with prams and people with accessibility needs. Importantly, it also provides safer access to the bus stops on either side of Ferntree Gully Road.
When I was first elected to Council, I remember hearing about an elderly woman who didn’t feel safe crossing eight lanes of traffic on North Road to get to the bus stop for Huntingdale Station.
Instead, she would catch a bus in the opposite direction to Monash University, then another bus back towards Huntingdale, simply so she didn’t have to cross the road.
Stories like that are a good reminder that something as simple as a safe pedestrian crossing can make a huge difference to how people get around their local community.
“Prickly Love” and “The World Approaches” were both fantastic. I studied theatre at Monash, and coming back always reminds me how much talent we have right here on our doorstep.
My daughter April, pictured here with me, came home raving about “The World Approaches”. Funnily enough, there’s a character named April in “Prickly Love”! I was hoping to take her along later in the week, but it’s sold out. Great to see local theatre that popular 😍
If you enjoy live theatre, sign up for the MUST mailing list and get along to the next production. Well worth it.
Congratulations to everyone involved in both shows. A great way to spend a Sunday!
For 35 years, AFCS has been supporting Filipino Australians through aged care, dementia support, community programs, advocacy and cultural events, while also helping strengthen the broader community.
What started as a small volunteer-led organisation has grown into an important statewide service, but the spirit behind it remains the same: people giving their time, energy and care to support others.
It was also great to celebrate the milestone alongside Greater Dandenong Mayor Cr Sophie Tan, Cardinia Shire Mayor Cr Brett Owen, Casey Mayor Cr Michelle Crowther and State MP Lee Tarlamis.
Congratulations to CEO Corina Dutlow, the current team, and all of the volunteers and committee members, past and present, who have helped build AFCS over the past 35 years.
A terrific milestone and well worth celebrating.
But for too many women and children, days like this can look very different. Victoria Police is preparing for around a 20 per cent increase in family violence incidents today.
Family violence is never acceptable. There is no excuse for it. Not alcohol. Not gambling losses. Not frustration about the footy. Nothing.
Grand Final day brings together a lot of things that can place extra pressure on households, including alcohol consumption and gambling. We also know just how heavily gambling has become embedded in football, in no small part because of the revenue it generates for the AFL and the wider game. I’ve long argued it’s time they cut the cord on the AFL’s gambling addiction.
But none of those things excuse violence.
The responsibility sits with the person who chooses to use violence.
We should be able to celebrate the Grand Final, enjoy the football and everything that comes with it, while also being prepared to call out behaviour that has no place in our homes or our community.
Look out for the people around you today. If something doesn’t seem right, don’t ignore it.
If you or someone you know needs help, 1800RESPECT is available on 1800 737 732.
If someone is in immediate danger, call Triple Zero (000).
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